I had a desk with a phone in the newsroom, though I was seldom there. The sight of grown men, and some women, filling in expenses forms, going to the pub, reading newspapers and pretending they were working was absurd. The qualities needed to succeed at the job were patience, a flair for lateral thinking and the ability to write clearly - though none of these, slightly feminine attributes was valued at all. What was admired in the newsroom was, in this order: belligerence, the knowing use of macho jargon and the ability to drink alcohol. The atmosphere that [the news editor] tried to create was that of a Royal Marines training school. And this, amazingly, was how it had always been.

Sebastian Faulks, Engleby p176. Faulks used to be a journalist and even had an Evening Standard column. I don't think 'Engleby' is a particularly good novel, but it's well written and the acuity of passages like the one above make it worth reading.